Adrift Without Ships : Closure of Landmark Westside Coffee Shop Saddens Many

At 4 p.m. Wednesday, another small piece of Los Angeles died.

Ships--one of the city’s quintessential ‘50s-style coffee shops that beckoned customers with a Jetsons-like sign boasting “Never Closes”--locked its doors.

Max Steinvock, 79, who had eaten there almost every day for the past 10 years, didn’t know where he’d go now.

Virginia Knox, a Ships waitress for 24 years, had trouble blinking away the tears that kept flooding her eyes.

And Cathy Jo Cozen couldn’t stop thinking about how her husband had brought her to Ships on their first date.

But as of today, the last of the trio of Googie-style Ships coffee shops with the tableside toasters will have closed. In 1984, a 20-story building replaced Westwood’s beloved all-night Ships. On Wednesday, Ships on La Cienega Boulevard at Olympic bid farewell to customers. And today, the Culver City Ships will close.

“It’s a sign of the times. And it’s just time we close,” said owner Marilyn Shipman, whose husband, Emmett, opened the first Ships in 1956 with his father, Matt. After Emmett died in 1991, three years after the death of his father, Marilyn Shipman struggled to compete in a Los Angeles where fast food had become a staple.

“We were always known for quality and we don’t want to sacrifice that,” Marilyn Shipman said. “Rather than go back on quality, it’s time for us to go.”

The menu was chock-full of comfort food, like the stuff your mom cooked or grandma baked. Ships was always the place to eat a chicken pot pie with a truly buttery crust. The Ship Shape burger, a half-pound of freshly ground Angus, was sizzled to perfection on a griddle. Pulp swam in the fresh-squeezed orange juice. And the mashed potatoes hailed from real potatoes; no mixes here, thank you.

It was the kind of place where the waitresses seem to know you by the time you finish your meal. Come in more than once, and you’d probably be on a first-name basis. Come in more than twice and you’d watch to see which earrings waitress Shirley Ward was wearing--she boasts a collection of 2,000 pairs.

Steinvock found it reassuring that in a world where so much changes, one thing didn’t. Every day, waitresses always sang out: “Hello, Max, coffee then water, right?”

Here, the waitresses were not sassy kids but brassy women. You could talk to them and they talked back. The coffee cups would always be refilled, no matter how many you’d already gulped down, sighed Steinvock, a retired parking lot attendant.

“I don’t know where I’ll go now, I really mean it,” said Steinvock, who liked to start his day with a bagel and coffee at Ships and return around 4 p.m. for dinner, usually with a hankering for the beef brisket.

On Wednesday, the last day for Ships on La Cienega, diners flocked to booths and counter seats. The crowd included the regulars, like Steinvock, as well as those who treasured fond memories of Ships, like Cozen, who was still in shock about the closing. Cozen had hoped to pick up a menu as a memento of the coffee shop that always seemed a mainstay in her life. But by the afternoon the menus had all disappeared into the hands of earlier souvenir-seekers, forcing waitresses to use photocopies.

Only one thought brightened Cozen’s gloom. “They need to do a recipe book,” said the adult education teacher.

Steve Rood, 33, showed up to pound down a burger with two friends in tow. Rood first frequented Ships when he was in college.

“We’re here to pay our respects,” explained Rood, an art director. “To think that this will be replaced by stucco and neon is quite depressing.”

Rood’s friend Ian MacDonald, who collects toasters, had other thoughts on his mind. MacDonald arrived prepared to offer $40 for one of the famous toasters that sat by every table.

“Some people collect Porsches, others collect toasters,” he said.

Jannis Swerman, a manager at Spago, admitted her boss, renowned chef Wolfgang Puck, wouldn’t be caught in a joint like Ships. But as an aficionado of coffee shops, Swerman said each closing makes her worry.

As she waited for her table on an orange Naugahyde-covered bench, customers streamed into the restaurant. Some didn’t have time to eat but pressed gift-wrapped presents into the hands of waitresses. Others hugged and kissed as they paid their checks.

“If all these places end up as trendy trattorias where you get bruschetta and angel hair-pasta, we’ll be in trouble,” Swerman said.